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How to Make a Simple DIY Yarn Christmas Tree

Learn how to make an easy DIY yarn Christmas tree to decorate your home for the holidays. The fluffy yarn gives the tree great texture! You’ll love how these cozy trees look in your home all winter long.

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy decorating my home for the holidays?

It’s kind of crazy to think how much time I put into decorating for just. one. holiday!

But.

I’ve got a secret.

I love decorating for Christmas with things that can stay out to keep my home looking cozy during the winter months.

AnnMarie does something similar in her home during winter too!

So when I made a tree covered with fringed burlap for my Christmas centerpiece, I could see the possibility.

I knew it could stay out all winter long.

So could its little tree friend who’s covered with burlap loops.

And I immediately started thinking of other types of trees I could make!

So I took a look through my crafting supplies and…

Eureka!

I found a ball of chunky cream colored yarn and knew exactly what I wanted to try.

Supplies needed to make a DIY Yarn Christmas tree lying on a table

We’ve all seen the DIY yarn trees where the yarn is wound all around the tree form.

They’re super cute, right?

But.

What if the yarn could be made to look like branches?

Almost like a flocked tree?

That would be something special!

Small tree covered in loops of textured yarn on top of a piece of birch wood to look like a trunk. A pillar candle sits on a plate behind it and a small votive candle is in a clear glass cup in front. A small white bottle brush tree is on the other side.

One of the things I love about this craft is you can make all different sizes of yarn-covered trees!

They look pretty grouped together, or mixed in with a variety of burlap trees and/or faux greenery trees.

You’ve got to see how I mixed them together for my kitchen table centerpiece this year!

How to Make a DIY Yarn Christmas Tree

This tree is so easy to make!

Here’s what you’ll need:

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1. Paint your wood stars with the gold metallic paint.

Start by painting the edges, then place the star on a piece of paper and paint the top.

hands holding small wooden star and paint brush

Set it aside and let the top dry while you complete the next few steps.

I like to paint a bunch of stars at once so they’re ready to use when I make more trees.

hands holding small wooden star and paint brush

When the tops are dry, flip them over and paint the other side.

2. Cover Base of the Cone

This step is optional, but it helps to cover the foam at the base of the tree and also provides a soft surface to protect your furniture. 

Simply trace the base of your foam cone on a piece of soft white felt and cut it out.

Woman's hands tracing the base of a floral foam cone on a piece of white felt

Apply hot glue to the base of the cone and attach the piece of felt.

Hands attaching a white felt circle to the base of a foam tree-shaped cone

Smoosh the glue out to the edges to make sure the felt circle is glued down all the way around.

3. Cut the burlap

When you buy burlap by the yard you’ll have two selvage edges that have been stitched by the manufacturer to prevent fraying.

Cut a rectangle of burlap large enough to wrap all the way around the base of your foam tree form with about an inch of overlap.

Mom tip: Make sure the bottom edge of the rectangle is one of the selvage edges!

Green florafoam cone with white felt on bottom lying on a piece of cream burlap

4. Cover the tree form with burlap

Run a line of hot glue down one edge of the burlap.

If you’re using a high temp glue gun, wait a few seconds for the glue to be a little less hot, and then wrap the burlap around the tree.

Woman's hands holding a styrofoam cone wrapped in cream colored burlap and attaching the burlap with a hot glue gun.

Since you’re wrapping a cone, the rectangle of burlap will end up being a little uneven at the end.

But that’s okay!

The whole thing is gonna be covered with yarn.

You may be wondering why bother with this step if the tree form is getting covered with yarn?

Well, since we’re doing loops of yarn, you can still see what’s underneath.

The burlap gives your tree a nice finished look.

It’s kinda like an undershirt!

Nothing to see here.

No naked trees sitting around…

Woman's hands holding a foam Christmas tree form wrapped in burlap and applying hot glue to the top

To cover the top part of your foam cone, add some hot glue to the top.

Then fold over the burlap to cover the top.

Woman's hands folding burlap down to cover the top of a foam Christmas tree

You may need to add a little more hot glue to hold each layer down as you fold it over.

Don’t worry about being super neat because this part won’t be visible at all!

Just try to get the burlap on top to be sorta flat.

Once you’ve finished attaching the burlap to the tree form you can clean up any edges.

If you’re planning to put your tree on a block of wood to look like a trunk, you don’t need to worry about whether any burlap is hanging below the edges.

Woman holding a foam cone covered in ivory burlap trimming the burlap along the bottom edge

But, if you plan to sit your tree flat, give it a little haircut to trim any bits hanging below the base.

5. Cover the tree with yarn

It’s time to get loopy!

With your yarn.

I like to pull out a bunch of the yarn first, but you don’t have to do it that way.

Woman's hands holding a foam cone wrapped in burlap and making a long loop of cream colored yarn

Get your hot glue gun ready, and place the end of the yarn a few inches up the base of the tree like in the picture above.

You’re going to be making loops of yarn and this is how long the loops will be.

There’s no right or wrong answer here.

You can play around with different lengths of loops to get different looks!

Woman's hands holding a foam cone wrapped in burlap and making a long loop of cream colored yarn

To make a loop, just run the yarn to the base of the tree and then bring it back up to the start.

Easy, right?!

Use hot glue to attach the loops to the burlap-wrapped tree form.

You can either add a bit of hot glue for each loop, or run a short line of glue and smoosh the loops into it as you make them.

Woman's hands holding a foam Christmas tree form wrapped in burlap and attaching loops of cream yarn to cover the outside.

Now, work your way all around the tree making loops.

I’ve found it looks best if you make lots of loops so the tree is more fully covered.

In fact, I tend to overlap a few loops, especially for this bottom row.

Woman's hands holding a foam Christmas tree form wrapped in burlap and attaching loops of cream yarn to cover the outside.

To start a new row, simply bring the end of the yarn up about an inch or two.

Add a dot of glue and start looping the yarn around just like you did for the first row.

Your next rows should overlap the loops immediately below about an inch.

Woman's hands holding a foam Christmas tree form wrapped in burlap and attaching loops of cream yarn to cover the outside.

The number of rows you’ll need to make will depend on how tall your tree form is.

For the last row, instead of attaching the yarn around the edge of the cone, glue the yarn to the top of the cone.

Woman's hands holding a DIY Yarn Christmas tree covered in cream yarn loops and putting hot glue onto the top of the tree

6. Attach your wooden star

To attach the star to the top of your tree, put a blop of hot glue on top of the yarn.

That’s a very technical term.

Basically you want a fairly generous amount of hot glue.

Woman's hands holding a DIY Yarn Christmas tree covered in cream yarn loops and attaching a gold painted wood star to the top of the tree

Now, put one of the gold-painted wooden stars from step one on top of the tree!

Hold it in place for about a minute while the glue hardens.

Woman's hands holding a Christmas tree made from loops of cream yarn with a gold star on top

And that’s it!

Also, this picture is a great example of why you want to cover the floral foam cone with burlap.

See how the burlap peeks out from underneath?

But no big deal!

It’s about the same color as the yarn so no one’s gonna notice.

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It’s so fun displaying these trees!

You can group a variety of sizes of yarn-wrapped trees together, or mix it up with different styles of trees.

Two cream colored burlap Christmas trees and one DIY yarn Christmas tree surrounded by greenery with small ivory bottle brush trees.

Whaddaya think?

Will you be making some of these trees for your home?

If you have any questions or suggestions, contact me or leave a comment!

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